Part of the problem

Martin Peretz on bringing an international force to Lebanon.

So what is the deus ex machina? The United Nations, of course. Not even NATO or European powers. And not even a new U.N. force. But UNIFIL, the "interim" force that has been in Lebanon since 1978. Not only has it failed to achieve any of its purposes, this is a U.N. operation with almost 2,500 personnel--nearly 2,000 of them armed--that has exacerbated the situation on the ground. There is no record of it having even alerted the secretary-general that southern Lebanon had become over the last six years an armed Hezbollah front deep into the country. As for fulfilling its purposes according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, it accomplished less than zilch.